#FanArt becomes an instant formula for amateur artists to gain popularity on Instagram | Economic Times

Mumbai: Anushka Bansal, a 22-year-old student of fine arts from Kanpur, was approached by a major film production company recently to design the poster of its upcoming movie, courtesy her fan art of celebrities on social media. With college shut during the lockdown, Bansal got the time to pursue drawing as a hobby and soon started dabbling in fan art.“I saw many people were gaining popularity on Instagram on the back of fan art, but it was all reproduction of celeb images in some form or the other. I decided to do caricatures, as it required a bit of imagination and set my art apart,” she said. Noticing her work, a celebrity asked their manager to get in touch with Bansal after being tagged on her Instagram post. “If I had applied to any of the big content companies directly, I had a slim chance of getting noticed,” she said. Bansal is among a new breed of amateur artists who have taken to social media during the lockdown and after, to share artwork they have been doing in their free time. To get instant traction, many of these artists — most in their early 20s and living in tier 2, 3 cities — are creating fan art of celebrities and social media influencers, hoping to tap into their massive fanbase by tagging the pop figure along with their fandom accounts. Many artists have, in the process, seen significant growth in followers and have also got dozens of work projects, either directly through the celebrity or via users who like their fan art. 77815489The trend has received a shot in the arm from celebrities with millions of Instagram followers like Virat Kohli, Deepika Padukone, Ayushmann Khurrana, Aditi Rao Hydari, and Danish Sait, who are now reposting fan art dedicated to them via Instagram Stories, giving due credit to the artists.Free Endorsement from StarsIn May, actor Deepika Padukone — with over 52 million Instagram followers — started sharing her fans’ artwork, including her portrait sketches, paintings, and animated illustrations, as part of an ongoing trend called #FanArtFriday.“If their work is seen and appreciated and it helps artists, then I’m even more encouraged to share it on my feed,” said actor Aditi Rao Hydari, who regularly posts #FanArtFriday stories for over 5 million followers on her Instagram account. “This is my way of giving back to some incredibly talented artists.” 77815492According to Facebook’s ad vertical — Facebook.com/Ads — there are approximately 700,000 users on Instagram in India who have expressed an interest in or liked pages related to fan art.They represent 5% of the global Instagram user base interested in the practice. Additionally, there are over 32 million posts on Instagram using the hashtag #FanArt. Like their Bollywood counterparts, young actors in South Indian filmdom, like Keerthy Suresh and Anupama Parameswaran, also include fan art as part of their Instagram Story highlights. The sudden surge in acknowledgment is because the lockdown had given many celebs more time to interact with fans on social media with several shoots stalled in the initial days, according to celebrity management consultants. To be sure, fan art has always existed offline, but much of it was faceless, said anthropologist Ishtaarth Dalmia, who works as AVP of strategy at digital agency Dentsu Webchutney.“Fan art on social media erases the boundary between the art and the artist,” he said. Traditionally, fan art focused on the muse.New HobbyIn the online realm, however, it is the practice and not necessarily the person that is emerging as the focus, said Rishi Kakar, chief marketing and strategy officer at Kokuyu Camlin, an art and stationery products maker that has organised fan art contests on social media in the past.“Fan art has picked up tremendously during the lockdown and we will continue to participate in this trend,” he added. For instance, at the beginning of the lockdown, Thrissur-based Punith KK had 250 followers on the Facebook-owned photo- and video-sharing platform. He now has close to 8,000 followers.The civil engineer from Kerala took a break from his job and decided to focus on hand-painting during the early days of the lockdown.“I started painting my favourite stars from the film industry and posting them on Instagram,” said the 26-year-old. So far, he has received recognition from leading South Indian actors sporting millions of Instagram followers, like Tovino Thomas, Anusree, among others. Thanks to his fan art’s popularity, Punith also gets 10-20 enquiries via Instagram messaging to do other art projects for which he charges between ₹1,500 and ₹7,000, depending on their size, quality and medium. Ethical IssuesThe fan art trend on social media has also attracted criticism for ethical issues.This is especially so in instances “where the artist takes the liberty to interpret the celebrity’s image in a manner that may seem objectionable to the very subject of the artwork,” said Malathi Jogi, a Mumbai-based instructional designer who regularly posts her art on Instagram.